Let interpreters help more New Yorkers vote: The Board of Elections is fighting a vital democratic lifeline in our city of immigrants

By Nisha Agarwal

Feb 25, 2019 | 11:00 AM

Voters fill out their forms as they prepare to vote at a polling station in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (Alexander F. Yuan / AP)

A year and a half ago, I was going to a rehab hospital two or three days a week to improve my arms, legs and speech after having a stroke. When you’re in these settings, you meet and connect with other patients and their families every day. One family I met was South Asian. The father and mother always came to support their son who experienced a brain injury. An Urdu interpreter provided by the hospital would accompany the family. Their therapist would talk to the family in English, and the interpreter would speak in Urdu to the family and vice-versa so that language barriers didn’t stop the therapist or the family from communicating the best decisions for their son.

I saw that for dozens of families at the hospital, myself included, disability and language were never barriers to receiving treatment and crucial information during the rehabilitation process. Instead, families, therapists and interpreters broke barriers by sharing a single goal — making us stronger.

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For about a year now, I’ve been working on DemocracyNYC, an initiative established by Mayor de Blasio and led by Deputy Mayor J. Phillip Thompson that aims to strengthen our democracy at home and across the nation. I partner with people with disabilities, people who speak languages other than English and other groups to ensure that their voices and their power are heard in our democracy. Unfortunately, every now and then I encounter institutions and people who attempt to do the opposite. In fact, on Friday evening — only days before Tuesday’s special election for public advocate — the Board of Elections (BOE) sued the city for attempting to make voting easier for all New Yorkers. To make matters worse, they’re trying to pit people with disabilities and immigrant groups against each other.

At every election, the BOE provides interpretation services for five languages: Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Bangla — the bare minimum required by the Voting Rights Act. This being the ultimate city of immigrants, the city took charge and went beyond the requirements of the Voting Rights Act by providing interpretation services for four additional language at 48 poll sites: Yiddish, Russian, Haitian Creole and Polish interpreters. We’ve done this for two previous elections, and each time the BOE required interpreters beyond the five mandated languages to be stationed 101 feet outside polling locations.

Our only request this time around is to have our interpreters stationed inside the building where poll sites are located instead of being outdoors in the brutal February cold and, most importantly, to ensure that all people speaking languages other than English can participate fully.

What’s the BOE’s response? Among other things, they say allowing more interpreters inside polling locations will somehow negatively impact another group — people with disabilities.

The argument set forth by BOE is that the interpreters will block the path of travel to both the poll site and the poll room which is not the case as the workers are there to assist individuals. BOE is equating interpreters with objects as BOE is mandated to ensure every polling site is free from objects that could impede voters who are blind or have a mobility disability. No, interpreters aren’t impeding or harming people with disabilities. That’s a red herring. Instead of making voting easier for New Yorkers, the BOE is trying to divide two groups of people who make our democracy stronger.

It’s worth noting that it took four years, a court order and grassroots activism for the BOE to adopt non-discriminatory policies for people with disabilities. Unfortunately, barriers still exist for people with disabilities including locked doors at the accessible entrances, accessible voting machines that do not work, aren’t set up, or staff doesn’t know how to use them. These are issues DemocracyNYC and Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities are working on with community stakeholders. However, BOE’s recent actions are not helping advance anyone’s right to vote.

In New York City, our diversity is our strength. It’s this truth that guides our work to bridge gaps between communities, whether it’s partnering with City agencies to provide programs that are accessible for everyone or providing interpretation services at polling locations to make voting easy, our work aims to unite and empower people. The BOE obviously doesn’t share this value.

Being a person with a disability, a daughter of immigrants and a South Asian woman, this issue hits close to home. It’s why I work with DemocracyNYC and travel across the five boroughs to bring groups together to fight divisiveness and to empower others. At a recent event in Harlem, people with disabilities and people who spoke a variety of different language came together to talk about democracy. Not only did these community members learn about voting and help empower one another, but they enjoyed meeting each other. One immigration advocate told me that he had much more in common with people with disabilities than he ever realized. If the BOE truly wants to divide these groups, they’re going to have to try harder.

On Feb. 26, I’ll vote in the special election with all of the identities that define me, because I have a voice and the power to influence change just like everyone else. No one should be barred from doing the same thing simply because the BOE refuses to do its job.

Agarwal, former commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, is senior adviser to Deputy Mayor J. Phillip Thompson.